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Become, Un-Become & Vow To Never Stop — Refuse To Go Back To A Recognisable You

“While one’s heart is being transformed into a little world, one wants to be alone.”— Kahlil Gibran

Creation Is Often Solitary Work

A world blooms in the center of my chest. Entire oceans churning and masses of land being pushed to the surface. Volcanic eruptions. Continental shifts and divides. Watery beasts crawling onto dry land. Morphing shapes. Discovering sound. Learning to recognize the beating rhythm of their own heart. The sheer effort of this is why I feel the pull to sequester. Drift away. Sort myself out from the flotsam and jetsam of daily living. Creation is stirring inside. Raising her shaggy head. Shaking the dust of sleep from her lids. Curling long vicious fingers around the edges of things and ripping.

So much is clattering to the floor these days. Slipping away. Crashing and splintering into a kaleidoscope of fractured bits. I used to try to glue them back together. Desperately scrambling. Trying to find how one piece fit into the next and the next. So that I could rebuild the picture of what had been. But, I am over that now. Let things lie where the land. Step over and around the debris. Slither naked and new into what’s next.

Alone is the epicenter of my heart these days. Shaking and screaming and pleading to be left in solitude and silence. With nothing but the contents of my own Self for company. I would narrow and narrow. Push through the tiniest slice of an opening. Just so I can emerge on the other side into the vast unknown of who I might be.

There are so many things I still do not know about myself. Even after 47 years tromping around in this skin suit. I think I will die with entire continents of Self unexplored. Dark, uninhabited places where creatures have taken over the landscape. Claimed that bit of world for themselves. No human-print permitted. I am resigned to this truth. And yet, I would know what is knowable. Hence the sloughing off of skins over and over again. This new refusal to reassemble into a recognizable shape – to make myself comfortable, to make anyone else comfortable.

Stability is a thing I have chased my whole life. Fell face first into the sinkhole of security. An elusive horse upon which no rider can remain seated. Striving to be secure caused me acres of grief. Now, as tectonic plates of self-hood collide and quake and rend themselves to pieces, some new holy demands freedom. The way oceans rise up and defeat everything known to civilization. An unstoppable force. This is how it is. How I am. Who I hope to become in the unbecoming. Security be damned.

A world blooms in the center of my chest. Alone tattooed across the firmament of it. Rooted deep down into the fiery middle. In order to unfurl this a bit more, to find the new threads, to stitch myself into the next shape and the next, I must let go.

I cannot do this in the presence of you. Or any other. This is solitary work. Quiet. Intense. Impossible work. No one can follow me here. I will not allow it. Tack up no trespassing signs everywhere. Enter at your own peril. Do not expect to be admitted. Do not expect to return unscathed should you venture here uninvited.

In this state, everything about me is liquid fire. Melting. Molten. Not yet shaped. Becoming and becoming. Yes, it will churn seas and form mountains shifting the topography of my interior forever. Yes, it will be an impermanent thing. As was the last world made and the one before that and the one that comes after this new thing.

Alone is the epicenter of my heart. Beating. Rabbit fast and quiet. Today, it is soft and tender. But soon, oh loves, soon, a roar that reverberates across the heavens will rip through this place. Wisdom rising up from wells I cannot know or name. Only surrender to. Carry home on the back of my tongue to spill into the world like holy fire. Burning away all the dross. I am coming. Becoming. Unbecoming. And I vow to never ever stop.

SPREAD THE MAGIC:

Shannon Crossman learned the hard way that untapped creative energy casts a helluva shadow, so she crafts her sanity with her hands daily. Nothing excites (or frustrates) her more than a blank page, fresh ball of yarn, or pile of foodstuffs - all waiting to be transformed into bits of deliciousness. Words are, and have always been, her way back home. She is a writer, artist, technical wizard, public speaker, witch, priestess, gluten free baker, time-bender, and COO who happens to possess a degree in Transpersonal & Somatic Psychology. She's a mama and grandma to a gaggle of wild girls who make her heart happy. When she's out in the business world she's figuring out how to make things faster, more efficient, and automating the hell out of sh*t. Shannon still believes in magic, craves the ocean like a land-locked mermaid, and dreams of a life without shoes.

I thought this was absolutely soul speech in terms of an essay. It truly spoke to me. I have had to quote it in an essay of my own (forgive me I hate the whole thrusting what I have done under what you have created thing but I wanted you to know how deeply this resonated with me.)

Thank you, Joey. I’m delighted to hear that the piece inspired you and some piece of it found its way into your own work. I think our voices feed each other and through the collective refrain, we rise even higher.